Jolla phone launch date announced

Jolla, the Finish company formed from ex-Nokia employees, has announced the launch date for the first ever Sailfish phone. The launch will happen in Helsinki on the 27th November and they will have 450 devices ready to buy for those who pre-ordered. Marc Dillon, one of the founding members of Jolla, made the announcement yesterday at Slush, the leading startup conference for Northern Europe and Russia.

Jolla was formed by staff leaving Nokia as the company went all-in with Windows phone and ditched the promising operating system Meego. The Meego operating system is a Linux-based, open source software platform that works using HTML, the main programming language that most websites use and that also unites the burgeoning Tizen OS and Firefox OS’s in the mobile phone world. Sailfish OS is Jolla’s iteration of Meego and can run Android apps as well as apps designed in HTML. The eponymous Jolla phone will come pre-loaded with the Yandex.Store, an Android app store. Whilst maybe not having much brand recognition in the western world Yandex is a Russian Internet company which operates the largest search engine in Russia with about 60% market share and they are well known for developing a number of Internet-based services and products. The Yandex Store advertises itself as an app store for Android available on android 2.3.3+ with over 85000 apps and after downloading on my Nexus 4 I can confirm they have all of the big names – Opera Brower, Facebook, Skype, Adobe etc.

Also pre-loaded to provide mapping duties is Nokia’s HERE Maps, who have been steadily enlarging their mobile presence and can be found on Windows Phone 8 smartphones as well as iOS, Android, FirefoxOS and TizenOS when a phone does come to market.

Jolla’s decision to launch in their home-country is a logical move that promotes DNA, the Finnish operator that will be selling the Jolla phone and they will be present at the launch event in Helsinki. They say

Finland is our home market and DNA will be the world’s first operator to sell Jolla phones. However, all the pre-order customers from all countries in both 1st and 2nd pre-booking campaigns will be served in the priority order they have placed their original orders. Also, Jolla phones will be gradually available through jolla.com direct online sales.

Jolla have also stated on their website

At the same time, we will start mail deliveries in the order of pre-bookings.

So, a new phone and new operating system enters the smartphone market. CoolSmartPhone will post pictures and initial impressions as soon as a phone arrives and I am very much looking forward to it!

Have you pre-ordered a Jolla phone? Is it too little too late? Only time will tell, roll on the end of November…